Berg Violin Concerto

In the early 1930s, at the height of the atonal and twelve tone
movement in music, the American violinist Louis Krasner
commissioned a concerto from the Viennese Composer Alban Berg.
Berg declined at first, saying that his idiom was not appropriate
to a concerto and that he did not belong in the world of
Wienawski and Vieuxtemps, two relatively obscure composers
nowadays who wrote virtuoso showpieces for the violin that are
very exciting but not particularly deep on a musical level.
Krasner countered with the Beethoven and Brahms’ violin
concertos, which, frankly, is a pretty great argument! Krasner
was convinced that Berg was the vessel through which 12
tone/serial music could reach, as the great writer Michael
Sternberg called it, “it’s expressive potential.” The 12
tone/serial technique of writing music was still controversial at
the time(and it remains that way now), with many composers and
performers embracing atonal music, with others, especially
audiences, turning away. Berg finally accepted the commission,
and despite his normal slow pace of composing, wrote the concerto
in just a few months. The piece fulfilled Krasner’s expectations,
and more, and it has become almost a standard repertoire piece
for violinists. It is in the twelve tone style, but it is also in
many ways a fundamentally tonal piece, and the way that Berg
passes through atonality to tonality and back again makes this
concerto accessible in a way that many other atonal works are not
at first hearing. Today on this Patreon and Fundraiser inspired
show, we’re going to go through this concerto, first by starting
with a crash course in 12 tone music. Then we’ll walk our way
through this concerto, talking about tone rows, tonality within
tone rows, Carinthian folk songs, life and death, Manon Gropius,
Alma Mahler, Bach, and the memory of angels. All of this is
contained inside of this remarkable piece, and we’ll talk all
about it, and more. Join us!